For fans of The Walking Dead comics, a moment we’ve been waiting years for has finally arrived – our first look at the flesh and blood version of one of the most badass characters ever created by the great Robert Kirkman. Yep, we’d say the powers-that-be got it exactly right!

Thanks to Entertainment Weekly, below you’ll find the first official image of Danai Gurira (“Treme”) embodying “the woman under the hood” known as Michonne.

In the comics Michonne is an unflinching warrior who proves to be powerful ally for Rick Grimes and the rest of the survivors. But how different will the onscreen version be? “The essence of the character — her personality, her motives, everything that makes Michonne Michonne — remains intact from the comics,” says Kirkman, “but like a lot of things on the show, there will be little tweaks and differences here and there. We saw that her introduction is slightly different from how it was in the comic, and her interaction with Andrea is really going to be a really cool addition to the character that I think will get television viewers up-to-speed, and they’ll get to know her a lot faster than comic book readers did.”

Kirkman also shared with EW a bit more about the prison setting for Season 3: “It looks absolutely amazing… when people start seeing trailers and stuff for this season, I think people are just gonna be like, ‘Wait, what? This is what? I can’t believe this is a TV show!’ It’s really creepy, really moody; and it’s just gonna be really awesome.”